Pyeongtaek City Pushes to Revitalize Secondary Financial Sector

[Suwon Ilbo=Reporter Seo Dong-young] On the 7th, Pyeongtaek City held a media briefing to announce the implementation results and future plans for revitalizing the secondary financial sector in the region, which has been facing difficulties due to prolonged economic downturn and COVID-19.

Within Pyeongtaek, there are 43 primary financial institutions including NH Nonghyup, KB Kookmin Bank, and Shinhan Bank, as well as 71 secondary financial institutions including regional agricultural cooperatives, credit unions, Saemaul Geumgo (Community Credit Cooperatives), and Suseok (National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives).

The city has held meetings with financial institutions since last year to revitalize the secondary financial sector, which primarily serves small business owners and low-income residents in the region.

As a result, 281 million won in idle funds from demand deposit passbooks held by the city's three endowed foundations—the International Exchange Foundation, Youth Foundation, and Pyeongtaek Welfare Foundation—have been placed as fixed deposits with three credit unions.

This was autonomously decided following procedures including review of the internal regulations of the endowed foundations and a board resolution.

Other metropolitan and local governments are also promoting various local financial revitalization projects.

As of March 13, Gyeonggi Province is expanding welfare facility subsidy dedicated cards from existing issuing financial institutions, Agricultural Cooperative and Industrial Bank, to include secondary financial institutions. The province plans to implement this across all cities and counties upon receiving approval from the Ministry of Health and Welfare.

Jeju Special Self-Governing Province and Gangwon Province have also signed business agreements with the Credit Union Central Federation and are expanding the operation of welfare facility subsidy dedicated cards.

A city official stated, "We believe that having subsidiary organizations and foundations place idle funds with Saemaul Geumgo and credit unions in our region that can contribute to common people's finance is very meaningful," and added, "We hope that cooperative projects between local companies, small business owners, cultural and social organizations, and other secondary financial institutions in the region will also be activated."